Purisima Search Party

On May 30th, our team hiked at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, on the west side of Skyline near Woodside. After last week's conveniently close hike at Almaden Quicksilver County Park, we misjudged how long this morning's drive would take. We called mentor Deb to let others know that we'd be a bit late, but only got her message machine. (Duh! She was in Arizona with the Grand Canyon 3-day Adventure hikers!)

We arrived at the trailhead at 8:06 am, a few minutes after all our Yosemite team members had already departed, on time for once. The trail system here has many possible forks and directions, and we had no idea where to go to catch up with them. If only they had left some marked maps for us!

The Park Ranger said they were five minutes ahead, and had gone down the trail parallel to the shorter/steeper fire road. We hoped to catch up where these paths meet. So we chased down the steeper road. I immediately began holding back and grumbling about possibly messing up my sore knee, which was still recovering from our third climb of Mission Peak.

Five minutes later, we realized that we had forgotten to lock our car. And no one was around at the trail junction. Downhill from there, the trails split three ways and we had no way to guess where the team was headed. So we gave up the chase and returned uphill to lock the car.

We then discussed whether to chase after the team in a hopeful direction (and ruin my knee), or both bag the entire weekend hike, or to instead hike this park on our own as a team of two and get whatever exercise I could handle. We went with the final choice.

We guessed that the team would circuit the park trails in a counter-clockwise direction and perhaps take a lunch break at the downhill entrance to the park. We planned to go there quickly, and wait awhile, in hopes of joining up with the team. The long downhill hike was pleasant. My knees seemed fine so far. The exercises and knee-taping from my physical therapist seemed to help. We enjoyed the many wild flowers that we saw along the trail.

We arrived at the downhill entrance but no one was around. It was too early for a team lunch break, so if they had been here, they likely moved on. So we continued on our counter-clockwise circuit, along Purisima Creek. Fifteen minutes later, we were happy to encounter our team, headed towards us in their clockwise circuit of the park!

Coach Nathalie was surprised and sorry that we hadn't seen the stack of marked maps that she left on her car windshield, right next to the trailhead gate. Of course, we hadn't known we were supposed to look there because no one ever told us we should. Oops!

Another team member had also joined the team midway on the trails. In her case, she was on time until she got lost on Skyline Blvd. She then guessed wrong about which parking lot and trailhead was being used. But she lucked out in picking an intercepting trail.

We and the rest of the team then hiked back uphill the way we'd came.

Christina had been on these trails once before, just after studying for and passing the California Bar Exam. She tagged along with her study partner, who was trying to get in shape to make an application to the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS, on a hike that turned out to be more difficult with more uphill than she could then handle. After hearing this story several times over the years, I expected this Purisima hike to be especially difficult. We had been dreading it for months. But it turned out to be easy compared to Mission Peak. A long hike with lots of uphill, but not especially steep. My knee was still relatively happy.

As we got within 30 minutes of our cars, it was clear that this one circuit of the park would not take the entire 7.5 hours planned for us this day. So the faster ones of us would take an additional excursion on a side trail. This began with a slight, very slight downhill. And now my right knee began having sharp pains at the bottom edge of the knee cap, at every step. My knee was not yet ready for all this. So I bugged out of doing that extension and returned to our car before anyone else. I applied an instant cold-pack. Neat! How do they work?

My knee felt better as soon as the hike was over. The timing of the pains was a bit odd; after a lot of uphill, rather than during the long downhill before that. My therapist and I later guessed that it may have been triggered by a lunch break I took during the uphill part, where I squatted on a low mound for awhile. This posture can be bad for "runner's knees". (Now, several weeks later, I think my problem is aggravated by swelling triggered during ups as well as downs, even though the pain mostly happens on the downhill.)

Christina returned to the car about an hour or so later, after doing the extension. Tired and a little bit sore, we returned home to a nice hot shower and a well-deserved rest.